The present invention relates in general to a system and method for handling broadcast audio/video (AV) contents in digital or analog format; and, more specifically, the invention relates to a broadcast receiver which permits recording of broadcast programs with easy to perform operations on an internally-provided information recording medium exemplified by a hard disk drive or other type of storage device, to a method for recording the broadcast programs, and to an information recorder for such use.
In addition to conventional analog television broadcasting, digital television broadcasting has recently received considerable attention in connection with satellite broadcasting with broadcast satellite or communications satellite systems and in terrestrial broadcasting, with the result that systems for receiving various broadcast contents in digital form are becoming widely available for use in ordinary households. Such systems ensure more channels than systems used only for conventional analog broadcasting, so that quite a large number of broadcast programs are available therethrough. For recording and reproduction of such a large number of broadcast programs, various types of AV systems are appearing on the market, e.g., digital VCRs, disk recorders, and other digital devices.
Since the information transmission speed has increased recently, e.g., to 20 Mbps, a stream recording/reproducing system, such as a so-called HDD recorder is well on its way to implementation. The stream recording/reproducing system includes a large-capacity information recording medium, such as a hard disk drive (HDD), so that a large number of channels can be received and stored. Using the HDD allows the recording of video/audio stream data. Such a data stream recording/reproducing system uses a data recorder in the form of a so-called disk recording medium, so that, even if the system stops operation due to a power failure or for other reasons, data reading after failure recovery is ensured by known technology, such as that described in JP-A-2002-32975.